Loading

Monthly archives: August 2010

Oil vs muscle power

16 comments
smoothie-bike

Matlinah Omiti (in the middle) demonstrates her "smoothie bicycle".

Kjell-Aleklett

Kjel Aleklett talking about future energy challenges.

Yesterday Tällberg Foundation arranged something they called “A Day For the Future” at Skeppsholmen, which is one of the islands in central Stockholm.
Having spent the weekend trying to suck the last sweet nectar out of this wonderful summer at Möja, another island further out in the archipelago, I arrived just in time to hear the “peak oil guru” professor Kjell Aleklett and his colleagues from Uppsala University talk about our energy future.

The theories about exactly when peak oil will happen differs, but the fact that oil is a limited resource and that we won’t have cheap and easily accessible oil forever is something that humanity will have to deal with, whether we like it or not. The question is just how.
Right now more than 80 percent of the world’s energy mix comes from fossil fuels.
Kersti Johansson, a researcher at Aleklett’s institution held a very interesting talk about the possibility to replace the fossil fuels that now are used for transportation with bio energy coming from agricultural crops or spill. Her calculations show that it will be very difficult, unless we want to grow crops for energy production instead of for food.

Not far from the museum library where the Peak Oil seminar was held I found something that makes it even more obvious what a lot of energy we use in our daily life. Matlinah Omiti from the Royal Institute of Technology showed me the “Smoothie Bike” that she has constructed. By peddalling you power a blender and mix your own delicious fruit drink. I tried it, and actually it doesn’t take a lot of sweat. By increasing the resistance you could make other things work with your muscle power, Matlinah explained to me. You can for example light up one light bulb or a wall of LED lamps, and you could grind coffe. But when it comes to boiling the water for that coffee, you will fail, because boiling water requires so much energy!

Last year the BBC actually made a very funny show on this subject, connecting the energy grid of a house where a family was living their “ordinary” life to a hall with cyclist, powering the home with excercise bikes. 78 frantically pedalling cyclists were needed in order for the father of the house to take a shower…
Maybe we should start using gym bikes a bit more efficiently?

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

August 30, 2010

Confessions of a train addict

25 comments
train

Photo: Stefan Nilsson.

Things have definitely gone back to normal after the holidays here in Sweden. People haft left their summer houses, unpacked their suitcases and returned to work. For me this only makes it even more tempting to get away. So in a few days I get on the train and go to France.

This year I have beaten my personal train travel record, travelling countless kilometres to London, Paris, Malmö in the south of Sweden and Kiruna in the upper north – not to mention all the places inbetween. Because travelling by train isn’t a transport from point A to point B. I’ve eaten dinner in Copenhagen, taken a stroll along the river Rhine in Cologne and seen the setting sun paint Boden in gold in Boden. And that was just bonuses, included in my tickets with no extra charge. Another wonderful bonus of travelling by train is the people that I get to meet, or just observe. Two enthustiastic Dutchmen, trying to make 20 kilos of reindeer horns fit into the tiny train beds. An elderly Swedish lady who had decided to learn English when she became a widow. I can’t imagine anyone telling me stories like theirs rushing through the check-in on an airport.

Considering all this I must admit that to me it’s a mystery how train companies are now drawing back their investments in train charters through Europe, because of a lacking interest. In 2007 the first train charter started going from Sweden to lake Garda in Italy and became a great success. Media talked about the new climate conscious train trend and the choice of holiday destinations grew. People went to Croatia, Slovenia and Austria.

But now travel companies say the interest hasn’t been what they had hoped for, and stop offering trips to almost all the destinations they recently had. They hope though, one travel company representant said in an article the other day, that increased cooperation between European train companies and more fast train lines will once again increase the travellers’ interest.

But charter trains isn’t the only way to get on a train going far away. Just ask me. At one of the European train companies’ phone booking offices they even recognize my name when I call. I guess that says something about my train addiction…

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

August 26, 2010

Consuming the world’s capital

10 comments

globe

Photo: Juan Carlos Del Olmo/WWF.
earth-overshoot-2010

Chart: Global Footprint Network.

This past Saturday was Overshoot day, an event established to describe how fast we humans consume Earth’s natural resources. This is the point of time every year when we have used up the stock of renewable assets. Or in economic terms: Now we have exceeded our budget, spent the whole year’s salary and start living on loans.

This means that everything humanity produces or consumes the rest of this year is above the limit of what Earth’s eco systems can take in the long run.
– In less than nine months we spend resources that it takes nature twelve months to recreate. If everyone lived as the Swedes we would need almost three globes, says Carina Borgström-Hansson from the World Wide Fund for Nature.

Until abour 30 years ago, humanity’s consumption and Earth’s annual production were in balance. But now we just seem to be speeding up the pace. Last year Overshoot day came on the 25:th of September. (There’s “normally” about four or five days of difference each year. The sudden jump this year isn’t due to any sudden change in human demand but rather to better calculation methods, says Global Footprint Network, the organisation behind the calculations)

But Carina Borgström-Hansson hasn’t given up.
– We have the knowledge as well as the technology to achieve smart solutions required for attractive and sustainable lifestyles that can fit into this planet’s frames. What’s needed is the will and political action, she says.

Right now the election campaigns are starting to reach their peaks, as we will have national elections here in Sweden the 19:th of September. I’m eagerly awaiting the different parties’ proposals for how we can get below the Overshoot limit again.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

August 23, 2010

Climate concert goes live on the web

8 comments

artistsRecently I heard the Swedish singer-songwriter Ane Brun tell the story about how she started to take climate change seriously. For long she hadn’t wanted to think about the issue, she said, avoiding films such as Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. But when a friend of hers suddenly started to show his personal and very emotional engagement in what will happen to the world if we continue to warm it up, the issue came closer.

After attending the Tällberg Forum summit a couple of years ago it all fell into place, she said. But it wasn’t a very harmonious feeling. Rather like wanting to run out on every street and city square, shouting about her worries and fears.

no-more-lullabies-artists

Some of the artists performing in the concert. Photo: Stadsteatern.

In a way, this is actually what she decided to do. At the international day of action for the “350 goal” last year she gathered an impressive crowd of Swedish top artists to give a marathon concert during 350 minutes.

The initiative “No more lullabies” has the goal to break through the mechanisms that make both individuals and societies close their eyes, and inspire conversations on climate change through music and poetry – beyond political rhetoric, defensive reactions and self-interest.
“It’s time to wake up. We need no more lullabies.”, they write.

And their work to make these messages come through with the help of culture continues. Yesterday and today Ane Brun and several other great Swedish artists give free concerts in one of Stockholm’s parks, as a part of the annual park theater arrangements.

But the concerts aren’t just for those of us who happen to be in Stockholm this evening – anyone can follow them on the Internet, live streamed on Tällberg Foundations home page.

The concert starts at seven o’clock tonight. Enjoy!

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

August 19, 2010

Encouragement instead of complaints

12 comments
uppmuntra-fridge

The supermarket at Sveavägen in central Stockholm. The sign says: "Invite a homeless to lunch". Photo: Uppmuntra.nu

As I’ve pointed out before, persons who are trying to create societal change sometimes risk being perceived as pretty negative characters. To make up for this, a newly started group in Sweden has begun to encourage initiatives that they like instead of criticizing what they don’t like.

Every month Uppmuntra.nu (which means encourage.now) picks out a company in Stockholm that does something good, “from an environmental, economical, social or human perspective”.

The first company to be appointed is a supermarket in the centre of Stockholm, which has put up a refrigerator outside their checkout counters with a printed request to “Invite a homeless to lunch”. There the supermarket puts food items that have a short best-before date and risk not getting sold, but costumers can also buy some extra food and donate it to the fridge.
The food is then collected by a local shelter, which every day gives food to about 200 homeless persons.

Uppmuntra.nu (the page has an autotranslation into English) has taken its inspiration from the Carrotmob movement, an “anti-boycott” organisation that started in USA in 2008. The idea behind it is that consumers can have an influence through their choices, and by supporting good activities consumers invest in a better development for society.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

August 18, 2010